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O line is fine. The team gave them help the first 3 games and last game didn't. I hope they go back to giving them help on the outside.

LOL we shouldn't have to help out the OL vs every team. It really limits what you can do, especially in our offense. Fitz, Roberts, Floyd, Doucet, Housler, etc. That's a lot of weapons and we can't even use them because we need to have 2 TEs or 2 RB just to help out the OL. You won't have many big plays if you need 7-8 guys to help block.

Also our OL has been horrible at run blocking. They have not been fine.

Ya...all of our big plays this year have been off of playaction though. Playaction comes from these types of sets.

At this point, Floyd and Doucet are both being a bit overrated in terms of big play ability.

O line is fine. The team gave them help the first 3 games and last game didn't. I hope they go back to giving them help on the outside.

LOL we shouldn't have to help out the OL vs every team. It really limits what you can do, especially in our offense. Fitz, Roberts, Floyd, Doucet, Housler, etc. That's a lot of weapons and we can't even use them because we need to have 2 TEs or 2 RB just to help out the OL. You won't have many big plays if you need 7-8 guys to help block.

Also our OL has been horrible at run blocking. They have not been fine.

You would think so, but our two biggest offensive plays on Sunday had 7 men blocking. Both the 33 yard pass to Housler and the 46 yard pass to Roberts for a TD involved 7 blockers._________________

Ya...all of our big plays this year have been off of playaction though. Playaction comes from these types of sets.

At this point, Floyd and Doucet are both being a bit overrated in terms of big play ability.

Doucet is not a deep threat guy he is a YAC guy and Floyd is still finding his feet, but his area seems to be the short to intermediate area with the ability to get deep if you need it. Similar to the strengths of Fitz._________________

8 sacks isn't helping this offense. The O line needs help when it's obvious the pass rush is getting there consistently. Kolb needs a bit of time to make a play and 6 or seven players on the line works for this team.

Ya...all of our big plays this year have been off of playaction though. Playaction comes from these types of sets.

At this point, Floyd and Doucet are both being a bit overrated in terms of big play ability.

Doucet is not a deep threat guy he is a YAC guy and Floyd is still finding his feet, but his area seems to be the short to intermediate area with the ability to get deep if you need it. Similar to the strengths of Fitz.

8 sacks isn't helping this offense. The O line needs help when it's obvious the pass rush is getting there consistently. Kolb needs a bit of time to make a play and 6 or seven players on the line works for this team.

1 - It works, no doubt.
2 - I keep on harping on about this, but it comes back to first and second down success. We have given up 14 sacks this year, 8 of them have come on third downs.
3 - It means a few things A] Teams are blitzing us on thrid downs to get pressure, B] When we are in 3rd and long we have to spread it out a bit and ti hurts us big time. C] Kolb is holding onto the ball rather than forcing something (good) it allows the defense to come out and make a play on a long field rather than putting the opposition into field goal range as soon as they get the football.

Basically, if we succed on first down, get ourselves into 2nd and 5 and then 3rd and 2 we are going to maintain a lot of drives. If we get into 2nd and 3rd and 10 we are going to see a lot of short drives and more sacks than most want._________________

O line is fine. The team gave them help the first 3 games and last game didn't. I hope they go back to giving them help on the outside.

Hmm...Don't you think Powell got all those snaps last week because Whiz knew the OL couldn't hold their own?!? Better play from the OL would have allowed us to play Williams more instead of Powell and likely would have lead to a few more rushing attempts. And the fact that we had to give the OL so much immediate help the 1st 3 games limited what we were able to do offensively. IMO, that OL really is not what I would call "fine", if it were Whiz wouldn't have to find so many different ways to assist it.

Bolded: Eh, not sure I agree with that either. I'm not saying the OL's been fine by any means but suggesting we kept a back in protection in the shotgun formation because of poor OL play isn't correct. That's a normal, every day offensive play for every NFL team. Shotgun usually means pass, pass usually means blitz, blitz means bringing more players after the quarterback than the OL can block, which means keeping in an extra blocker/chipper on offense. We could have a truly top notch NFL OL right now and we'd play a back right there.

You are correct about it being standard to leave a back in there in most shotgun formations. But work with me here...With better protection up front, we wouldn't need to buy time with a shotgun formation as often, yes? Continuing on, If the OL could protect better, we wouldn't have to fear Williams' poor blocking skills as much. Combine these two things and it allows us to put Williams on the field for more snaps and use more traditional sets, which could lead to more running plays and PA passes.

I suspect one of the reasons we ran so little last game, was because Whiz would have preferred Williams running the ball, but Miami's D would have picked up on the higher chance of a run play if Williams was on the field. So instead of rotating Williams and Powell as much, he utilized Powell a lot more than what he normally would have liked to. And finally given that Powell offers more as a blocker than a rusher relative to what Williams can do, at least at this point, it lead to an increase is passing plays being called. Does that make sense?_________________Adopt a Bill:
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8 sacks isn't helping this offense. The O line needs help when it's obvious the pass rush is getting there consistently. Kolb needs a bit of time to make a play and 6 or seven players on the line works for this team.

3 - It means a few things A] Teams are blitzing us on thrid downs to get pressure, B] When we are in 3rd and long we have to spread it out a bit and ti hurts us big time. C] Kolb is holding onto the ball rather than forcing something (good) it allows the defense to come out and make a play on a long field rather than putting the opposition into field goal range as soon as they get the football.

After reading PFF and football outsiders, I need to add:

D] The back we're keeping in to help with the pass protections aren't doing their jobs very well either.

O line is fine. The team gave them help the first 3 games and last game didn't. I hope they go back to giving them help on the outside.

Hmm...Don't you think Powell got all those snaps last week because Whiz knew the OL couldn't hold their own?!? Better play from the OL would have allowed us to play Williams more instead of Powell and likely would have lead to a few more rushing attempts. And the fact that we had to give the OL so much immediate help the 1st 3 games limited what we were able to do offensively. IMO, that OL really is not what I would call "fine", if it were Whiz wouldn't have to find so many different ways to assist it.

Bolded: Eh, not sure I agree with that either. I'm not saying the OL's been fine by any means but suggesting we kept a back in protection in the shotgun formation because of poor OL play isn't correct. That's a normal, every day offensive play for every NFL team. Shotgun usually means pass, pass usually means blitz, blitz means bringing more players after the quarterback than the OL can block, which means keeping in an extra blocker/chipper on offense. We could have a truly top notch NFL OL right now and we'd play a back right there.

You are correct about it being standard to leave a back in there in most shotgun formations. But work with me here...With better protection up front, we wouldn't need to buy time with a shotgun formation as often, yes? Continuing on, If the OL could protect better, we wouldn't have to fear Williams' poor blocking skills as much. Combine these two things and it allows us to put Williams on the field for more snaps and use more traditional sets, which could lead to more running plays and PA passes.

I suspect one of the reasons we ran so little last game, was because Whiz would have preferred Williams running the ball, but Miami's D would have picked up on the higher chance of a run play if Williams was on the field. So instead of rotating Williams and Powell as much, he utilized Powell a lot more than what he normally would have liked to. And finally given that Powell offers more as a blocker than a rusher relative to what Williams can do, at least at this point, it lead to an increase is passing plays being called. Does that make sense?

First parapgrah: Even though I disagree with what apollo14000's central point was in his post, your scenario kind of echos what is valid with his point. Less shotgun formation means less time for the field for Michael Floyd and, when Heap gets back, Rob Housler. Is that something we want to do as a full time offensive thing? I like where our offensive strategies were the first 3 games but to completely eliminate Floyd and Housler from the gameplan? I'm not really good with that. We have to incorporate them at at least a decently steady rate.

Second paragraph: Yes, that makes perfect sense. I'm not sure that's an OL problem though. It sounds to me like a Ryan Williams problem.

8 sacks isn't helping this offense. The O line needs help when it's obvious the pass rush is getting there consistently. Kolb needs a bit of time to make a play and 6 or seven players on the line works for this team.

1 - It works, no doubt.
2 - I keep on harping on about this, but it comes back to first and second down success. We have given up 14 sacks this year, 8 of them have come on third downs.
3 - It means a few things A] Teams are blitzing us on thrid downs to get pressure, B] When we are in 3rd and long we have to spread it out a bit and ti hurts us big time. C] Kolb is holding onto the ball rather than forcing something (good) it allows the defense to come out and make a play on a long field rather than putting the opposition into field goal range as soon as they get the football.

Basically, if we succed on first down, get ourselves into 2nd and 5 and then 3rd and 2 we are going to maintain a lot of drives. If we get into 2nd and 3rd and 10 we are going to see a lot of short drives and more sacks than most want.

Good stuff and that's what I see as well. Guys like jeff King seem to be very good at chipping and getting off the block and making a play downfield.

O line is fine. The team gave them help the first 3 games and last game didn't. I hope they go back to giving them help on the outside.

LOL we shouldn't have to help out the OL vs every team. It really limits what you can do, especially in our offense. Fitz, Roberts, Floyd, Doucet, Housler, etc. That's a lot of weapons and we can't even use them because we need to have 2 TEs or 2 RB just to help out the OL. You won't have many big plays if you need 7-8 guys to help block.

Also our OL has been horrible at run blocking. They have not been fine.

Ya...all of our big plays this year have been off of playaction though. Playaction comes from these types of sets.

At this point, Floyd and Doucet are both being a bit overrated in terms of big play ability.

I shouldn't have been so general about hating the need for 7-8 guys to block. I love the 2 TE sets, 2 RB, etc. But if you're in the 4th quarter and 10-14 points down, those sets aren't going to generate many big plays because we can't run the ball and therefore PA won't work. Also we need 4 WR to spread the field. If we have to go to shotgun for example, like we did on the last drive, 5 OL and a RB needs to be enough to block and it wasn't for us. We gave up 2 sacks on that drive. That's not good enough and we lucked out a bit. Whiz even talked about picking certain spots and "taking chances" on having enough time to do PA or a 5-7 step drop without extra help. We can't always give help because then you seriously limit you playbook in a lot of situations (like when you need to pass deep and the defense knows it)._________________Favorite 2015 Prospects: Tyler Lockett WR, Tevin Coleman RB, Laken Tomlinson OG, Shaq Thompson LB, Nate Orchard OLB

8 sacks isn't helping this offense. The O line needs help when it's obvious the pass rush is getting there consistently. Kolb needs a bit of time to make a play and 6 or seven players on the line works for this team.

2 - I keep on harping on about this, but it comes back to first and second down success. We have given up 14 sacks this year, 8 of them have come on third downs.
3 - It means a few things A] Teams are blitzing us on thrid downs to get pressure, B] When we are in 3rd and long we have to spread it out a bit and ti hurts us big time. C] Kolb is holding onto the ball rather than forcing something (good) it allows the defense to come out and make a play on a long field rather than putting the opposition into field goal range as soon as they get the football.

Not relevant to your argument but here's a very intriguing stat about Kolb on 3rd down.

Quote:

His passing rating on third downs is 120.2, second in the NFL, and that doesn’t include his two clutch fourth-down completions on the game-tying drive against Miami